Charlie Jane Anders

This clip, for me, is the moment when NBC's The Cape transcended its pulpy limitations and became a timeless work of art that we'll be discovering new layers in for years to come. It's not just the great dialogue like "The hamster is in the microwave." It's not even the hilarious gag where the assassin thinks that Peter Fleming is hiring him to kill comic-book writers and artists — although that's a genuinely cute moment.

It's the whole meta-textual thing where the show actually comes out and analyzes the ridiculousness of a guy dressing up as a character from a comic book to fight crime. As Goggles says, "Fantasy, reality — blur blur blur. Don't cross the line. Scary dark hole. I looked into it myself." I am getting that line of dialogue tattooed on my neck. Possibly the front of my neck. It just says so much about life, and art, and the universe, and stuff.

So in last night's Cape, Fleming hires the assassin brothers Goggles and Hicks to take out the Cape, and they lure the Cape to a fake meeting with Scales — even though the Cape has a million broken ribs and he wants a day off. (The hot circus chick checks him out and says, "I know a sick animal when I see one." Heh.) The assassins manage to figure out who The Cape really is, and nearly kill him with a robot bumblebee, but somehow they manage to miss at point blank range, shooting a few hundred bullets.

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In the end, the Cape and Orwell track down Goggles in his van and kidnap him, and when Hicks demands his brother back, the Cape refuses. But Orwell gives up Goggles in return for keeping their secrets. Leading to the great line from Hicks, "I see who wears the cape in this relationship." And the Cape gives Hicks a final parting threat: "If I see you again, I'm going to tear your eyes out and pour my coffee in your skull." It's just pretty much all-around greatness.

And then there's the usual painful subplots involving the Cape's family, the Faradays. In the episode's statutorily required flashback, Dana asks Vince how he likes his eggs, and he says, "Fertilized." She somehow finds this charming. Meawhile, in the present day, their son Trog is acting even more anti-social than usual... until he meets an utterly creeptastic neighbor kid who has the hots for Dana. They wind up eating ice cream until they're ready to puke all over each other. "Mistakes were made," says neighbor kid. Indeed they were.

Oh, and Dana finally figured out that Marty is in on the conspiracy to frame her husband for being a board-game-themed supervillain. Go Dana!

All in all, another gloriously self-parodying episode of the most insane show on television. How are we ever going to survive without this show?